We coasted on, the shore becoming lower and lower, until at length nothing was to be seen but an arid, sandy plain stretching away for miles. Not a tree or house broke its dull uniformity.

In the midst of this gloomy desert is Eupatoria. It would be difficult to find a more wretched-looking little place. The town consists of a tumble-down mosque, a couple of Christian churches, a caravanserai for strangers, and a few low miserable houses. There is also a small wooden landing-place, and a few huts, like sentry-boxes, scattered along the shore.

These huts, however, make the fortune, such as it is, of Eupatoria. They are the famous mud baths well known in the Crimea, and during the summer are resorted to, from all parts of Southern Russia, by persons afflicted with skin diseases.

There is one sad malady for which these baths are peculiarly efficacious. This complaint consists in the skin becoming so thin that at times the slightest exertion may cause hÆmorrhage to take place from any or all parts of the body; a wasting consumption being thus produced that usually ends fatally.

The baths at Eupatoria have effected some wonderful cures, and their reputation is of course increasing.

The patient lies for some hours every day in the soft, healing muddy water, which, by degrees, makes a sort of artificial coating by leaving the sediment upon the body. The skin is thus protected until it can regain its proper health and thickness. We afterwards met a Russian in Sevastopol who had been quite cured by this singular remedy.

Immediately in front of the landing-place is the caravanserai, a long, low building, with galleries. It contains a number of small, empty rooms, of which any traveller may take possession for a night. We watched the arrival of a large party, who came in wearily with their tired horses and camels, having come across the Great Steppe, or wilderness, that for a hundred miles or more lies to the north of Eupatoria.

Side by side with the mosque, the walls almost joining, is the principal Greek church, and round it are the best houses, which we, on landing, thought very wretched; but having been brought to a proper degree of depression by a walk through the town, we found them quite comfortable as we returned.

It would be difficult to find a place more squalid and filthy than this miserable little town. Eyes and nose are equally offended; and after the delicate cleanliness so apparent in the Turks and their houses, Eupatoria and its inhabitants appeared the more revolting.

Men, women, and houses looked as if water had been a luxury unknown to them from the earliest days. Oil, oil everywhere—on the walls, in the clothes, in the air, even on the ground. One would have expected to see it running in the gutters, could anything run here, but everything liquid seems to stagnate, and turn into sticky mud. Nothing was clean except the kittens, and they may fairly claim to be counted amongst the population of the town, so numerous were they.

The bazaars were better supplied than might have been supposed from the poverty-stricken appearance of the place.

The bread was fairly good, and fruit very abundant. The melons, especially, were excellent, and exceedingly cheap. We bought some of the finest in the market for little more than two copecks (about a penny) apiece.

The day following our arrival we went on shore about six o’clock, in order to have a long drive into the Steppe. Whilst waiting for our conveyance we went into the Greek church, and found it crowded with people, it being the Feast of the Assumption.

The full dress of the Greek priests is very magnificent. One of those now officiating had a robe of silver tissue, with a large cape of crimson velvet, half covered with gold embroidery. The custom, also, of wearing the hair long adds much to the picturesque appearance of the Greek “papas.”

The youngest of the three priests had a singularly beautiful face, in shape and colouring like one of Leonardo da Vinci’s pictures of Our Saviour. The hair, wavy and silky as that of a woman, and of a reddish, or rather golden-brown shade, hung in rich masses over his shoulders, nearly down to his waist.

The congregation was composed principally of men of the lower classes, dressed in the ordinary costume of Russian peasants. This consists of a sheepskin coat, a cap of the same material, very full cloth trousers, and great leather boots.

Although well clad, and with no appearance of poverty about them, yet there was in the attitude and bearing of these men an expression of deep humility, almost amounting to slavishness, that was painful to see. Very remarkable, also, was the utter joylessness of the faces around. There was no lack of intelligence, but these poor people looked as if the very power of being happy or cheerful had died away within their hearts.

Occasionally during the service they prostrated themselves in the Turkish fashion, by touching the ground with their foreheads; but for the greater part of the time they were crossing themselves diligently.

No man could have crossed himself less than two or three hundred times during the hour we remained in the church.

Before the service had quite concluded, a sound, as if a lot of old saucepans had been dragged to the door, accompanied by the stamping of horses and the shouts of men, announced that our carriage had arrived, and on going out we found a wonderful-looking conveyance awaiting us. A long box, something like an unpainted hearse, had been fastened by bits of rope and bands of iron to a set of wheels which looked as if they had originally belonged to a gun-carriage; and it was evident that springs were a luxury not to be expected. There were no seats, but some straw, covered by a couple of sheepskins, had been put in for us to sit upon.

We climbed up, and arranged ourselves as well as we could, but with some dismal forebodings on the subject of fleas, which, unhappily, were fully realised.

We tumbled and bumped over a sort of track, passing through a wretched street of decayed warehouses, and almost equally ruinous huts, and then by a row of windmills, so small that they looked like children’s toys, till we came to the open country, or steppe.

It would be difficult to imagine anything more desolate than the arid plain that stretches beyond Eupatoria, on the north side, as far as eye can reach.

It is half marsh, half sand, and for many months during the winter lies partially under water.

Here and there may be seen a patch of reedy grass, like an oasis in the desert. On one of these two Bactrian camels were feeding, and their uncouth forms and awkward movements were very appropriate adjuncts to the gloomy dreariness of the scene.

Bactrian camels differ from those of Egypt and Syria in having two humps instead of one; and being in general better bred, and consequently swifter than the animals in the latter countries, are of course more valuable.

A drive of a few miles satisfied our curiosity respecting the steppe. We might have journeyed on for days and have still seen the flat, desolate plain stretching far, far away with the same gloomy monotony of dreariness. So, finding that the cramp was seizing us, and that our bones were decidedly aching from the bumps and blows we got in consequence of the primitive construction of our vehicle, we turned back towards the sea.

Along the shore were still lying the remains of some of the French vessels wrecked here during the storm of the 14th of November, 1854, and a mast or two, sticking up from a sand-bank at no great distance, showed where some other unfortunate ships had more recently found a grave.

We had heard that there was a Jewish synagogue here well worth seeing, and also interesting, as being the favourite burial-place of many Rabbis of the Russian Jews. So, leaving the carriage at the entrance of the town, we dived into a perfect labyrinth of little, dark streets, even more unsavoury than those whose acquaintance we had already made.

Our guide halted under an ancient archway, and ringing a bell, in a few minutes the trap of a little grating was slipped aside, and a tremulous old voice asked who were the visitors, and what they wanted. The answer being satisfactory, bolts were withdrawn and chains let down, a small door opened, and we found ourselves in a deliciously clean, shady court, made dark and cool by trellises covered with vines, from which great bunches of rich purple grapes were hanging in tempting profusion. In the corners stood pots of the sweet clove-pink, and the sun’s rays, softened by the shadowing vine-leaves, fell upon the marble pavement, beneath whose slabs lay the body of many a Rabbi well known in Jewish history. Some of those, who were now resting in their last sleep in this quiet spot, had died the death of martyrs in Poland and elsewhere, and, in secrecy and with much difficulty, their poor remains had been brought here to lie in peace amidst their brethren.

The synagogue was a room about forty feet square. The walls were ornamented with Hebrew sentences from the Old Testament, and in numerous little niches around lay the Bibles and Talmuds of the congregation. Before a screen at the upper end was a small table, covered with a cloth that was a mass of gold, embroidery, and seed pearls. On either side were desks, on which lay the Books of the Law, and above the screen stood the golden candlesticks with their seven mystical branches. Ostrich eggs and crimson horse-tails were suspended from the roof, as in a Turkish mosque, and the floor was covered with an unusual number of magnificent Persian rugs, laid one over the other.

As we passed through some other small courts and gardens, we saw several women peeping at us from behind the doors. At length two or three gained courage enough to show themselves, and very pretty they looked in their picturesque costume. They had white chemises, with large loose sleeves, bound with red round the throat and arms, and a broad border of the same colour on their short black petticoats. They wore on their heads a little fez with a bright purple tassel, and each fair Jewess had four or five thick plaits of hair hanging down almost to her feet. We were lost in admiration at the length and beauty of these tresses, but, alas! discovered that they were heirlooms, not growing on the heads, but sewn on to the fezzes of the wearers, and with care they may sometimes serve two, or even three generations.

Jews, as a class, are sometimes said to be oppressed and ill-treated in Russia, but certainly in Eupatoria they were the only people we saw who were clean and thoroughly well dressed, and whose houses appeared comfortable and comparatively free from oil.

The wind favoured us, and we had an excellent run from Eupatoria to Old Fort, where the English troops landed on the 14th of September, 1854. As we were rowing on shore the breeze shifted, and we suddenly found ourselves enveloped in a dense shower of locusts. The flight was so enormous that it quite darkened the air, and explained the meaning of a singular cloud we had been watching for some hours, thinking, as it came up, that it must bode either thunder or heavy rain.

It was sufficiently disagreeable to have these revolting animals falling upon one every second, but this annoyance was as nothing compared with the horror of the smell that assailed us when we came to the shore. Myriads of dead and dying locusts were lying in masses upon the ground. The day was intensely hot, and the sun, streaming upon the mass of decaying insects, seemed to draw a cloud of pestilential vapour from the ground, while every now and then a puff of sickening miasma came from a little piece of water close by, rightly called the Foetid Lake, from some peculiarity of the mud on its banks.

My curiosity was not strong enough to enable me to endure the horrors of a walk over the dead and dying animals, so I fled to the boat, and, under the protection of a thick cloak and huge umbrella, waited there until the others had seen enough.

For hours the yacht was passing through the swarm, or detachments of it. Such numbers of the disgusting insects fell on the deck that two men were constantly employed in sweeping them into the sea. Every window, every crevice, was kept carefully closed, for fear that one of them should get below. There is something inexpressibly revolting about these horrid animals. They fly, they crawl, and they cling, and, after having come in contact with them, we could well understand what a frightful infliction the plague of them in Egypt must have been. Wherever they pass they leave barrenness and pestilence. We hoped the flight we had met might be driven out to sea. It was a very large one, for long after we had passed through it, we could see the dark cloud extending along the horizon like hills.

Beyond Old Fort the country began to improve. The sandy plain gradually changed into gentle undulations, then rose to picturesque hills, and at last, in the distance, a range of fine mountains came in sight. Here and there a few small farmsteads, surrounded by patches of cultivated ground, showed that the soil was more genial than that around Eupatoria and Old Fort.

In the glow of a lovely sunset, the sea gently breaking in little waves upon the beach, the lark singing above the corn-fields, in all the quiet and repose of a summer evening, we came upon the scene of the most awful strife and carnage the world has seen in modern times.

As we lay in towards the shore, on our right was the steep bank up which the brave Zouaves forced their way; the pretty grass-field beyond, where a flock of sheep were so peacefully feeding, was the deadly slope where so many of the noble and gallant 23rd Welsh Fusiliers died a soldier’s death. That fearful day is now a story of long ago—but what English heart can look upon the field of Alma and remain unmoved?

The chalk cliffs near the sea are about thirty feet high, and are curiously intersected by strata of red gravel. As the sun slowly sank, these cliffs caught his last rays, and were dyed so deep a crimson that we could almost fancy the battle had but been to-day, and that the long dark stains were indeed the blood so nobly shed by our gallant soldiers.

We hove-to opposite the mouth of the little river, and sent a boat on shore to see if we could land, but a Cossack, who had been suspiciously watching the movements of the yacht all day (and a long hot ride he must have had), rode rapidly down to the beach, and, pointing his lance in very warlike fashion at the men, clearly demonstrated that no landing must be attempted. The boatswain, who spoke Russ, tried to remonstrate, but an order had lately been sent from Odessa, that no person should be allowed to land on the coast without a permit, so, with our destination before us, we had to set sail and depart.